Review: Mousterpiece

Mousterpiece by Jane Breskin Zalben

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



It's really informational text more than it is a story book. Zalben puts a survey of modern art into a simple narrative. She does not attempt to explain the pieces shown or to do interpretation. This was nice. The concept of styles is brought home with Zalben's own painting attributed to Janson, her main character. As a survey of art it's good just to look. If I were reading this with children, I'd want to have larger examples from many of these artists on hand. The list of artists at the end whose work Zalben drew on was helpful information.

Generous white space draws attention to the 'paintings' on each page. It is hard to tell whether this was Zalben's work or the designer, Jennifer Browne's. The cutout cover was more likely Browne's work, and contributes to the concept of framing. But this also made it seem like the cutout was going to be an ongoing part of the book, like it is in so many books that use the cutout technique.



View all my reviews